]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/tanglewood-75th-anniversary-celebration-the-program/1380/feed/0 Full Episodehttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/tanglewood-75th-anniversary-celebration-full-episode/1371/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/tanglewood-75th-anniversary-celebration-full-episode/1371/#disqus_threadSat, 11 Aug 2012 16:00:03 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/?p=1371The concert includes appearances by the BSO and Boston Pops and features performances by Yo-Yo Ma and James Taylor.

]]>Located in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, Tanglewood is one of the world’s most beloved music festivals. The performance, a presentation of GREAT PERFORMANCES, will feature appearances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), the Boston Pops, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra — led by conductors John Williams, Keith Lockhart and Andris Nelsons — and iconic Tanglewood artists Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Peter Serkin and James Taylor. The wide-ranging program, which will be taped on July 14, will include Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”; Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from On the Town; selections from the Great American Songbook; Franz Joseph Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D, 2nd and 3rd movements; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Andante cantabile for cello and strings; Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, for violin and orchestra; Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse”; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/tanglewood-75th-anniversary-celebration-full-episode/1371/feed/0 About the Concerthttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/tanglewood-75th-anniversary-celebration-about-the-concert/1327/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/tanglewood-75th-anniversary-celebration-about-the-concert/1327/#disqus_threadThu, 19 Jul 2012 21:31:19 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/?p=1327Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration, featuring many of the iconic artists identified with the fete, will air on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances Friday, August 10 at 9 p.m. ET as part of the PBS Arts Summer Festival (check local listings). Located in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, Tanglewood is one of the world’s most beloved […]

]]>Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration, featuring many of the iconic artists identified with the fete, will air on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances Friday, August 10 at 9 p.m. ET as part of the PBS Arts Summer Festival (check local listings).

Located in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, Tanglewood is one of the world’s most beloved music festivals and serves as the summer home for the famed Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO).

Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration will feature the BSO, the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, under the direction of conductors Keith Lockhart, Andris Nelsons, John Williams, and David Zinman.

Performers will include pianists Emanuel Ax and Peter Serkin, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and vocalist James Taylor, as well as the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor. The wide-ranging program, taped on July 14, will include Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”; Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from On the Town; selections from the Great American Songbook (“Over the Rainbow,” “Shall We Dance,” and “Old Man River”); Franz Joseph Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D, 2nd and 3rd movements; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Andante cantabile for cello and strings; Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, for violin and orchestra; Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse”; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy.

“The BSO is one of the many great regional arts institutions to be featured on Great Performances over its four decade history,” said David Horn, executive producer, Great Performances. “GP has enjoyed a long association with the BSO and its summertime home at the Tanglewood festival, dating back to our extensive broadcast collaborations with Leonard Bernstein. We are delighted to return to Tanglewood for this 75th anniversary concert, which also represents a wonderful homecoming celebration for us.”

The Tanglewood concert is the seventh program in the PBS Arts Summer Festival, which includes documentaries from independent filmmakers that explore a wide spectrum of international art forms and offer an in-depth look at music, theater, art, architecture and cultural history from some of the world’s unique locations. Award-winning television, film and stage star Anna Deavere Smith serves as weekly host for the Summer Festival.

Major funding for the telecast is provided by the Great Performances telecast of the Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration is made possible by the Irene Diamond Fund, The Mugar Foundation, The Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, Victor and Sono Elmaleh, The Starr Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, public television viewers and PBS.

Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc, C Major Entertainment, ZDF/ARTE and Unitel/CLASSICA.

Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration is directed by Bill Cosel. For Great Performances, John Walker and Mitch Owgang are producers; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

]]>On May 5, 2011, Carnegie Hall commemorated its 120th anniversary with an all-star gala concert featuring conductor Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic and special guests pianist Emanuel Ax, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Gil Shaham, and the four-time Tony Award-winning singer and actress Audra McDonald. Watch the full concert here on the Great Performances Web site.

The eclectic, crowd-pleasing program is set to include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56, performed by Ax, Ma, and Shaham, a selection of Duke Ellington songs – including “Solitude,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “On a Turquoise Cloud,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing” — performed by McDonald, and full performances of Antonin Dvořák’s Carnival Overture and George Gershwin’s An American in Paris.

Carnegie Hall 120th Anniversary Concert — featuring the works of Ludwig von Beethoven, Duke Ellington, Antonin Dvořák, and George Gershwin — will air as part of Great Performances on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 from 8-9:30 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media partners.

The eclectic, crowd-pleasing program is set to include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56, performed by Ax, Ma, and Shaham, a selection of Duke Ellington songs – including “Solitude,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “On a Turquoise Cloud,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing” — performed by McDonald, and full performances of Antonin Dvořák’sCarnival Overture and George Gershwin’sAn American in Paris.

Dvořák conducted his Carnival Overture with the Boston Symphony at Carnegie Hall when he came to New York to assume his post as director of the National Conservatory of Music on October 21, 1892.

Gershwin’s An American in Paris was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, and conducted by Walter Damrosch in the New York premiere on December 13, 1928 at Carnegie Hall. (The concert hall was the home base of the New York Philharmonic until the orchestra moved to its current location at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in 1962.)

Ellington played his first historic Carnegie Hall concert on January 23, 1943, beginning an extraordinary series of concerts there of his long-form works.

In the late 1800’s, New York City was emerging as an international capital, and composers were flourishing in the classical world. In 1891, Carnegie Hall, founded by industrialist and entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie, opened its doors as simply “Music Hall” on May 5, 1891 with none other than Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducting. It was renamed “Carnegie Hall” in 1893 when Carnegie allowed the use of his name and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.

Carnegie Hall 120th Anniversary Concert is a co-production of Carnegie Hall and THIRTEEN for WNET. For Great Performances, John Walker, Cara Cosentino, and Mitch Owgang are producers; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; and David Horn is executive producer. It will be directed for television by Brian Large.

Major funding for the Great Performances telecast is provided by The National Endowment for the Arts, The Anna Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, the Arlene and Milton D. Berkman Philanthropic Fund, The Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, Victor and Sono Elmaleh, Vivian Milstein, the Starr Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and Joseph A. Wilson, with additional funding in memory of Virginia and Leonard Marx.

The television broadcast of this concert is supported by S. Donald Sussman, with additional support to Carnegie Hall from the National Endowment for the Arts.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/carnegie-hall-120th-anniversary-concert-with-alan-gilbert-and-the-new-york-philharmonic-about-the-concert/1116/feed/27 Selected Bernstein Numbershttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/carnegie-hall-opening-night-2008-a-celebration-of-leonard-bernstein-video-selected-bernstein-numbers/253/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/carnegie-hall-opening-night-2008-a-celebration-of-leonard-bernstein-video-selected-bernstein-numbers/253/#disqus_threadWed, 10 Dec 2008 14:12:26 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/?p=253Featuring music selections ranging from the 1944 ballet Fancy Free through West Side Story (1957) to the composer’s final opera A Quiet Place (1983), this excerpt of the concert offers a virtual sound portrait of Leonard Bernstein’s life. This Great Performances episode featuring the San Francisco Symphony and its conductor Michael Tilson Thomas received an […]

]]>Featuring music selections ranging from the 1944 ballet Fancy Free through West Side Story (1957) to the composer’s final opera A Quiet Place (1983), this excerpt of the concert offers a virtual sound portrait of Leonard Bernstein’s life. This Great Performances episode featuring the San Francisco Symphony and its conductor Michael Tilson Thomas received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Class Programs in 2009.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/carnegie-hall-opening-night-2008-a-celebration-of-leonard-bernstein-video-selected-bernstein-numbers/253/feed/7 About the Performershttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/carnegie-hall-opening-night-2008-a-celebration-of-leonard-bernstein-about-the-performers/256/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/carnegie-hall-opening-night-2008-a-celebration-of-leonard-bernstein-about-the-performers/256/#disqus_threadMon, 24 Nov 2008 22:13:41 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/?p=256Michael Tilson Thomas MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS made his conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony in 1974 and was appointed its Music Director in September 1995. A Los Angeles native, he studied piano with John Crown and composition and conducting with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California and has worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, […]

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS made his conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony in 1974 and was appointed its Music Director in September 1995. A Los Angeles native, he studied piano with John Crown and composition and conducting with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California and has worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Copland on premieres of their compositions. In 1969, at the age of 24, he won the Koussevitzky Prize and was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Ten days later he came to international recognition, replacing Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert at Lincoln Center. Until 2000, he was co-Artistic Director of the Pacific Music Festival, which he and Leonard Bernstein inaugurated in Sapporo, Japan, in 1990, and he continues to serve as Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, which he founded in 1987. On television, he has been featured with the San Francisco Symphony on GREAT PERFORMANCES, in a series with the London Symphony Orchestra for the BBC, and in PBS documentaries with the New World Symphony, among others. In June 2004, he and the San Francisco Symphony launched Keeping Score: MTT on Music on PBS. Carnegie Hall presented Michael Tilson Thomas in its Perspectives series for two consecutive seasons in 2003-04 and 2004-05.

Dawn Upshaw

DAWN UPSHAW – whose first performance in Carnegie Hall was as a chorus member under Bernstein’s baton in Mahler’s Second Symphony when she was in graduate school – has achieved worldwide renown as a singer of opera and concert repertoire ranging from the sacred works of Bach to the freshest sounds of today. At Carnegie Hall this season, she will co-lead a workshop for young singers and composers with Osvaldo Golijov, perform with Ensemble ACJW in Zankel Hall, and reprise her role as Margarita Xirgu in a concert performance of Golijov’s opera Ainadamar with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She has championed numerous new works created for her, including The Great Gatsby by John Harbison, L’amour de loin by Kaija Saariaho, John Adams’s nativity oratorio El Niño, and Golijov’s Ainadamar and song cycle Ayre. A four-time Grammy Award winner, she has recorded several of Bernstein’s music theater songs for Nonesuch Records, as well as “What a Movie!” on her American opera aria collection “The World So Wide”. The Artistic Partner of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, she is a member of the faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center and is Artistic Director of the Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory of Music. In 2007 she received a MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as a “genius grant.”

Christine Ebersole

CHRISTINE EBERSOLE won a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Obie Award, special citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle, and the Drama League’s 2006 Distinguished Performance of the Year Award for her dual performance in Grey Gardens. Her other Broadway credits include Steel Magnolias, Dinner at Eight (Tony and Outer Critics Circle nominations), 42nd Street (Tony and Outer Critics Circle awards), The Best Man, Getting Away With Murder, Harrigan ‘n’ Hart, Camelot (with Richard Burton), Oklahoma!, On the Twentieth Century, I Love My Wife, and Angel Street. Off Broadway credits include Talking Heads (Obie and Outer Critics Circle awards) and four productions for New York City Center’s Encores! Her many film and television appearances include Tootsie, Amadeus, Saturday Night Live, and Will & Grace.

Thomas Hampson

American baritone THOMAS HAMPSON enjoys a wide-ranging career as a singer of lieder, operas, oratorios, and works for voice and orchestra. His first performance in Carnegie Hall’s main auditorium was singing Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer” and Rückert-Lieder in a 1990 concert with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein – one of a trio of programs that were to be Bernstein’s last at the Hall. His encounter with Bernstein had a strong impact on his life and career and led the way to his becoming one of today’s leading interpreters of the music of Mahler. He recently recorded Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, released in September as part of the orchestra’s Mahler recording project on its SFS Media Label. As an active proponent of the study of American song, he collaborates on song projects with academic and cultural partners through his foundation, Hampsong.org, to promote the art of song in intercultural understanding. His “Song of America” tour, first presented with the Library of Congress in 2006-06, will be expanded during the 2009-10 season. In 2007 he was named Special Advisor to the Library of Congress for Education and the Legacy of the Performing Arts.

Yo-Yo Ma

The many-faceted career of cellist YO-YO MA is testament to both his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences and his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. Whether performing a new concerto, revisiting a familiar work from the cello repertoire, coming together with colleagues for chamber music, or exploring musical forms outside of the Western classical tradition, he strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination. One of his goals is the exploration of music as a means of communication, and as a vehicle for the migrations of ideas across a range of cultures throughout the world. Expanding upon this interest, he established the Silk Road Project to promote the study of the cultural, artistic, and intellectual traditions along the ancient Silk Road trade route that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

San Francisco Symphony

The SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY is considered to be a leading presence among American orchestras and maintains an active touring program, with award winning recordings and innovative broadcast and education projects. The orchestra appears regularly in Europe, Asia, and cities in the US, including annual performances at Carnegie Hall. Its commitment to music education has resulted in the groundbreaking television, radio, and multimedia project Keeping Score; a nationally syndicated radio series on avant-garde American composers entitled American Mavericks; an award-winning children’s website, sfskids.com; and Adventures in Music, a nationally acclaimed in-school music education program for San Francisco schools.

Airing in high definition and 5.1 surround sound, the evening, recorded September 24, marked the opening salvo of the four-month Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds, a New York City-wide salute to the composer, conductor and educator presented by Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic celebrating the 90th anniversary of his birth and 50th anniversary of his appointment as New York Philharmonic Music Director.

“Jazzy energy and the Jets,” hailed The New York Times, while The Newark Star-Ledger called the program “a dizzying sampler of the composer’s wit and poetry.”

Featuring selections ranging from the 1944 ballet Fancy Free through West Side Story (1957) to his final opera A Quiet Place (1983), the telecast offers a virtual sound portrait of Leonard Bernstein’s life. “His music is intensely biographical,” says Tilson Thomas, a close friend and colleague of Bernstein, who first met the maestro in 1968 and, in 1971, succeeded him as conductor of the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts on national TV. “The pieces do reflect his early, middle and late years,” Tilson Thomas says, “optimistic, reflective and then the concern that somehow all the disparate themes will come out in the end, that there will be some kind of resolution and peace.”

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, certainly Bernstein’s most famous work, opens the program, followed by selections from A Quiet Place, with Hampson and Upshaw as an estranged father and daughter. On the lighter side, Ebersole scores with the randy “I Can Cook Too” from On the Town, then joins Upshaw, Hampson and Ma for “Ya Got Me” from the same show.

Other highlights: Meditation No. 1 from Mass (Ma), “What a Movie!” from Trouble in Tahiti (Upshaw), “To What You Said” from Songfest (Hampson and Ma), and “Gee, Officer Krupke” from West Side Story (students of The Juilliard School). The orchestra itself gets another chance to shine with the slinky, hip-swaying Danzon from Fancy Free.

Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969 and Laureate Conductor from 1969 to 1990, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) brought his own particular New World sensibility to classical music. Equally at home in a Broadway theater or concert hall, the beloved ‘Lenny’ – who performed at Carnegie Hall more than 400 times during his career – had an enthusiasm for an understanding of music far beyond his classical realm, extending into jazz, world music, American song, and 1960s pop and rock.

A popular presence on television – his Young People’s Concerts introduced an entire generation to classical music – he was a particular favorite of GREAT PERFORMANCES audiences. Beginning with the series’ first full season in 1973-74, when Mass became GP’s first music program, through 1988’s Bernstein at 70 from Tanglewood, he was never far from a series camera. More recently, his Candide in Concert was a highlight of the 2004-5 season.

Tilson Thomas, who also hosts Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2008: A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein, assumed his post as the 11th Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in 1995, consolidating a strong relationship with the orchestra that began some two decades earlier. In 1974, at age 29, he made his debut with the group leading Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. His tenure has been praised for innovative programming and for bringing the works of American composers to the fore, as well as attracting new audiences to Davies Symphony Hall. He last appeared on GREAT PERFORMANCES in 2004’s two-part examination and performance (with the SFS) of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, part of the orchestra’s groundbreaking PBS television series and multimedia project Keeping Score.

Now in its 97th season, the esteemed San Francisco Symphony includes among its music directors such distinguished conductors as Pierre Monteux, Seiji Ozawa, Edo de Waart, and Herbert Blomstedt.

Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2008: A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein inaugurates the hall’s 118th season and is a production of Carnegie Hall and Thirteen/WNET New York in association with San Francisco Symphony. Directed by Gary Halvorson, it is produced by John Walker and Mitch Owgang, with David Horn as Executive Producer.

GREAT PERFORMANCES is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS. Major funding for this telecast was provided by S. Donald Sussman, with additional special funding by The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund and the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

Major funding for Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds has been provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Alice Tully Foundation, American Express, Bob and Martha Lipp, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, Nash Family Foundation, and Mr. and Mrs. A. Alfred Taubman. Additional funding provided by GWFF USA Inc., and Linda and Stuart Nelson.

For Great Performances

Series Producer BILL O’DONNELL

Executive Producer DAVID HORN

A Production of Carnegie Hall and Thirteen/WNET New York In association with San Francisco Symphony

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